The present invention is directed to apparatus for picking up and packaging loose railroad track cross ties. Such loose ties are produced during track repair operations involving the removal of old cross ties which are replaced with new ones. It is undesirable to leave loose ties adjacent to a railroad track for a number of reasons, and therefore it is desirable to remove the ties as soon as possible in an efficient manner.
The procedure presently followed is to pick up the loose ties and stack them on a railroad car having a tiltable deck which supports the railroad ties. A tie crane is provided for picking up the loose ties and requires a first man to operate same. The tie crane is adapted to move along a railroad track and is a self-propelled vehicle. The tie crane can either pull or push a car having the aforesaid tiltable deck thereon. The ties are stacked on the deck by the tie crane operator. A second man manually bands the stack of ties on the railroad car. When the ties have been banded into a bundle of ties, the tie crane operator operates the tie crane so as to tilt the deck on the railroad car to one side or the other to discharge the banded bundle of ties to the ground. A work train provided with a crane subsequently picks of the bundles of ties and moves them to a remote location.
The disadvantage of this prior art procedure is that it requires two men and involves a considerable amount of manual labor. It is therefore a principal objective of the invention to provide apparatus for banding bundles of ties which can be operated by a single man and which does not require any manual labor.